In applicant's view, the personal power requirements of the soldier, sailor, aviator, or Marine (hereinafter collectively referred to as a soldier) continue to increase at a relatively rapid rate. The requirements for improved power management, power distribution and reduced weight of batteries that must be carried by the soldier was, inter alia, the subject of my PCT Application No. PCT/CA2006/001078 for Contactless Battery Charging Apparel filed Jun. 28, 2006, incorporated herein by reference, that describes the application of multiple inductive charging nodes distributed around the torso of the soldier, that are able to provide power through inductive coupling to equipment on the soldiers torso, weapons subsystem and helmet subsystem.
An important component of the present system is the utilisation of a central power source that could be any of several technologies including primary batteries, rechargeable (secondary) batteries, fuel cells or super-capacitors etcetera. Most soldier modernisation system designs favour that of rechargeable batteries as the central power source. The central battery could be swapped out and be replaced by another battery that is fully recharged. There is also the option for charging the central battery while it is still being utilised and carried by the soldier. A unique opportunity to recharge the battery presents itself when the soldier is being transported by a vehicle such as LAV, HMMV, an ATV, or any other vehicle including aeronautical or astronautical vehicles, or marine vessels, etc, that provide both seats for occupants and a power source for charging.
The need to charge the electronic equipment on a modernised soldier has been recognised since the original concept of modernised soldier systems. The use of primary batteries as a central power source has proven to be very poor option in terms of extra weight carried by the soldier, logistic support, etcetera. The provision of a rechargeable central power source to the soldier provides several options to input power when separated from barracks or forward operating base charging facilities. These options would include solar power, energy harvesting, AC recharging and the ability to access vehicle, aircraft or marine transport electric power.
Power from transportation could be as simple as swapping out a depleted battery (or the depleted components of a battery) for a fully charged battery (or fully charged components of a battery), or placing a charge into the battery once within the transport.
The existing Stryker Vehicle Integration Kit (VIK) provides the soldier when seated with an conductive electrical contact umbilical connection for DC power and communications with the vehicle crew. The energy provided by the umbilical connection directly powers both the Land Warrior system or other future soldier system and the charging of the main system batteries. This connection is not without problems as it has been determined it is not only difficult for soldiers to connect to the vehicle but that a failure of the AN/PSN-11 GPS PLGR has been linked to improper connections of the umbilical wiring harness to the host vehicle.
As applicant understands it, a primary objective of current US Army, and its NATO allies soldier modernisation research is to examine the potential for increasing the ruggedness, decreasing the cost and or weight of the system by improving the electrical connectors and cable/connector assemblies in a future warrior ensemble. This will also benefit any present and future combat soldier development program to which some of these improvements could potentially apply.
It is applicant's opinion that the existing round plug-ins for the cables on the Land Warrior's computer are bulky, costly, and prone to failure because pin-and-socket connections are less than robust. Existing connectors have a low life expectancy and exhibit failures of the connector pins and sockets. The Land Warrior system being fielded today consists of 40 connectors, including both the plugs on the cables and the receptacles.
Although there are in the prior art examples of inductive charging being used in-conjunction with vehicles, to the best of applicant's knowledge none describe where batteries worn on the body of an occupant of the vehicle are charged by the transfer of power inductively or that data or communications is transferred inductively between the occupant and the vehicle or vehicle seat. Hulsey (U.S. Pat. No. 5,264,776) and Koike (U.S. Pat. No. 6,356,052) are representative of patents for the transfer of electrical power to a vehicle for the purpose of safely charging on board drive batteries of either electric or hybrid powered vehicles from a AC power source. The other inductive technology application that has seen more interest recently is the use of inductive coupling to transfer power and data between personal hand held devices such as cellular phones, MP3 player, PDA, GPS etc that are stowed in the vehicles console or dashboard. See for example Hipshier (US Publication No. 2010/0090491 A1), or Sarnowsky (US Publication No. 2008/0079388 A1). Baarman (U.S. Pat. No. 7,462,951) describes the charging of power tools and other commercial devices within tool boxes or caddies located within the cab or box of a truck. Reed (U.S. Pat. No. 7,728,551 B2) teaches placing a primary inductive circuit in the vehicle seat back however it then inductively connects to a visible surface containing the rechargeable device. Baarman (U.S. Pat. No. 7,612,528 B2) also teaches placing a primary inductive circuit in a vehicle seat back which is a remote device holder and into which a device is placed. It does not teach the inductive transfer of power to a person's torso for the purpose of charging centralized batteries to power a soldier system.
With respect to prior art for inductive data transfer there is a significant body of work that has been documented on both the passive and active transfer of data with respect to inductively coupled RFID devices. To the best of the applicants knowledge none describe where data is communicated inductively between a vehicle seat to receiving devices on the occupant of the seat. Lair (U.S. Pat. No. 7,149,552 B2) and Palermo (U.S. Pat. No. 7,254,366 B2) are both representative of the transfer of data using near field inductive technology. Both involve the transfer of audio data between a communication radio and hand or head sets.